


spirits laid to rest

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, During Canon, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The seconds feel like lifetimes.





	spirits laid to rest

Bucky wakes in the dirt. He feels terribly disjointed, his head pounding and brain static. The last thing Bucky remembers is Steve—it always is—face pained and stricken, and his name the last thing on Bucky’s lips. He knows, like the first time, what he’ll see when he opens his eyes. 

Light filters in, and Steve is nowhere in sight. 

 

 

His legs are shaky as he walks. Bucky isn’t sure whether it’s from the fall or the fight or the fear of knowing everything has changed, and not being sure why.

The forest is full of life, a contrast to the battle that ended a few footfalls away, but the person he’s looking for isn’t there. Bucky doesn’t know how far he walks, hands pressed to the brittle bark of old trees for support, but his eyes never fail to search. 

There’s a rustle in the bushes behind him. He turns ready to strike and, for a moment, Bucky thinks it’s Steve—he _hopes_ it’s Steve—but then the leaves part and Sam stands there, the weight of the world squished between his eyebrows.

“I found him,” he speaks into the intercom, and then to Bucky, “There’s a fight at the compound. They need us. Cap needs us.”

Bucky doesn’t think twice. He’s been there for Steve when he was 90 pounds, recovering from a cold in Bucky’s bed as his Ma made feeble scraps of food for the three of them, Bucky portioning out the meal so Steve would get his share too. It’s been over seventy years, and there’s no way in hell Bucky’s stopping now.

 

 

He walks through the portal next to a tree who only speaks his own name. Bucky wonders when he stopped thinking about the strangeness of things, but it helps that he has. He’s lost so many years before, losing five more is nothing.

Their army is substantial but so is Thanos’. The fight was less than a day for them, their allies wounded, but the other side—it’s like it never happened. It’s the fight of their lives, two times in one day, but there’s no time for doubt, not when the fate of the world rests in the gun in his hands, the willpower of his allies, and not when Bucky spots sight of Steve above the heads of hundreds, right at the front, leading the crowd.

Bucky doesn’t need to see his face. He’s seen the broad line of Steve’s back many times before, marched at his right side, provided protection for his blind spots. Bucky only needs to see the straight line of Steve’s shoulders, a stance that can move a million, to know that he looks like a hero.

Steve’s voice carries through the wind, and with it everyone else runs forward following his command. Bucky runs too. He’ll follow Steve wherever he needs to go.

 

 

Fighting Thanos’ army the first time was a pain. It’s still a goddamn bitch the second time around. 

Bucky’s pinned to the ground, a claw a paper’s breadth away from his face, his gun shooting at an attack to his left. A hammer comes flying through and knocks the assailant off of him, right when he felt the tip of a talon on the thin skin of his throat. 

He turns around expecting to see Thor, but it isn’t. It’s Steve who Mjolnir returns to. Steve meets his eyes, a small smirk on his face before it turns to determination. He runs full speed ahead to where Tony is fighting Thanos. 

For a minute, Bucky is struck at the sight. He still remembers the stories Steve used to tell him, on the rare occasions he was pulled out of sleep for testing and always woke up to the sight of Steve. Steve would talk about anything and everything, Bucky silently listening, his brain howling at him but the deep timbre of Steve’s voice lulling him into calmness. He knows the backstory, Steve’s delight of having even _moved_ Mjolnir a fraction more than the others, but now Steve’s wielding the hammer like it’s his own, lightning travelling down from the sky to his fingertips. 

Bucky shoots at an enemy coming at his right without thinking, and like that, he resumes fighting.

Bucky doesn’t know why he was surprised. He’s always known that Steve is worthy. 

 

 

The fight ends without celebration. He didn’t have the best relationship with Tony, but the loss of him hangs in the air around him, suffocating.

The compound is ruined. There’s no place to rest and heal the wounded, so they travel through the portals back to Wakanda. Bucky helps where he can. He’s familiar enough with how Shuri works to not be a nuisance around her.

Steve finds him in a moment of reprieve, leaning against the door frame of the room Bucky used to rest in during the breaks between sleep. Bucky’s sitting on the bed, clothes still dirty from the fight, staring at his hands.

“Did you get into any trouble while I was gone?” Bucky asks, looking up at him.

The line works, and for a second, the briefest amount of time, Steve’s face relaxes as he smiles. “Not as much as you would have,” Steve replies.

He walks over, bed dipping when he sits. His shoulder is pressed next to Bucky, and Bucky leans into the contact—it’s more support than he could ever put into words.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Steve says. Bucky looks over and his eyes are closed. The five years gone feel longer when he’s staring at the new worry lines on Steve’s face. In Steve’s hands, the pocket watch he’s never let go of rests open in his palm. 

“I’m glad I am too.”

It’s silent afterwards where they stay, no words enough to fill the space. It doesn’t matter, though. Steve is next to him.

 

 

After the funeral, Steve finds Bucky out in the woods.

Bucky ducked out from the crowd after the procession, walking until he was standing at the edge of the water, hands in his pockets, staring out to where birds swooped high above him. 

Steve stands next to him, watching with him. The birds disappear, flying higher and away, and Steve says, “I’m going to put the stones back in their place.”

Bucky nods. He’s known ever since he heard about the plan—Steve will always be the one to volunteer—but there’s more he wants to say, and Bucky turns to look at him, the sun hitting Steve’s face and making him glow.

“I saw her, Buck.” Steve’s still staring into the water. There are things hidden underneath, things rising up to the surface, things floating away on small wooden wreaths. Bucky sees all of that reflected in Steve’s eyes. “She was right in front of me.”

The silence stretches between them like the time that has passed from who they once were, but Steve—Steve’s never forgotten. “What are you going to do?” Bucky asks, even though he already knows, like he knew when he was leaving that first time after the expo that Steve wouldn’t sit still and do nothing. 

“I don’t know,” Steve says, but Bucky sees it in his face, even before Steve knows it himself. 

 

 

He hangs back. Sam and Bruce talk out the details with Steve, and Bucky watches from a few feet away, his eyes never straying from Steve, drinking in the sight of him and committing it to memory.

He gets pulled into a hug by Steve, and knows what Steve chose. 

“I’ll miss you, buddy,” Steve says. He smiles and it’s beautiful. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” 

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you,” Bucky replies. He’s with Steve until the end of the line. Steve’s been living for others since before he was able to. It’s time for him to live the life he deserves—to finally sleep with rest. 

Steve stands in the middle of the machine, suited up and looking everything like the hero he’s always been, and that’s the last thing Bucky sees of him before he disappears.

 

 

The seconds feel like lifetimes. When Sam and Bruce start to freak out, Bucky stays still, closes his eyes, breathes deep and accepts what he already knew. He hopes Steve did what he needed to.

Then the machine sounds, and Sam and Bruce make noises of surprise and Bucky opens his eyes and _looks_. 

Light filters in, and Steve is right there, standing in the middle of the time machine, looking older, the stones gone, his hands empty but _there_.

“Take your time there, Cap?” Sam asks. Bucky sees the crows feet in the corner of his eyes, knows a few years have passed for Steve, and hopes they were good ones filled with laughter. 

“You can say that,” Steve says, a smile on his face and his eyes meeting Bucky’s. The reflection of the depths of the water is no longer there, instead replaced by the freedom of the birds soaring, and behind it, something Bucky had seen on the off occasion but never hoped for, never dreamed of, and Bucky can’t help but smile back. 

There was a life Steve could have lived, a life he maybe started to live, but Steve stands there, spirits laid to rest, older and with a future uncertain. He looks, all at once, devastatingly brave and heroic.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of love for steve and bucky and i watched endgame two days ago and this has been the only thing on my mind since


End file.
